" In Kelly’s work the act of painting provides a passage from self-contained isolation to relationship with the world that surrounds her. "

-Sarah Schuster (Associate Professor of Art at Oberlin College)

"Kelly has not, like Gauguin the retired stockbroker, turned east in search of the Other. Rather, a migrant worker herself, she has simply found subjects in her new environment. And she depicts an actuality that incrementally changes by the fact of her painting it."

-David Cohen

"To concentrate on the face of a sex-worker is thus to redeem his/her humanity on the face of a ‘reality’ which seeks to reduce him/her to mere flesh."

- Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay

Latest Exhibitions

Artist in Residence University of Tasmania April-May 2016

Artist Statement

The 2015-2016 seasonal fires in Tasmania, Australia were longer in duration because of a continued draught. As a result, fires reached the alpine level of the mountains where the forests are up to 1500 years old consisting largely of Pencil Pines. Whole forests are blackened charcoal. My residency was directly after the fires, and became the focus of my work. As a resident artist I painted two paintings of a 1500 year old tree in Tasmania's World Heritage Area, Central Plato Conservation Area near Lake Mackenzie. I chose to paint this tree, the largest of the burnt trees that I could find. I've named this tree, “Joan of Arc.” after my own name, and the French Catholic Saint who was also burnt at the stake not from Global Warming but by the English, upon the orders of The Cardinal of Winchester in Rouen in 1431. Here is the painting “Joan of Arc” is surrounded by her kin. The grid reference for Joan of arc is:448459 easting & 5380999 northing. The 2nd painting is titled “Listen Close”, Joan of Arc is depicted communicating to her kin, passing on her wisdom of survival, her kin listening close. I worked from many drawings of the burnt trees as references and photographs.

"Speaking on behalf of his fellow judges, Ben Quilty said both 'Arnold and Kelly are artists and activists'. The judges were drawn to Raymond Arnold’s and Joan Kelly’s visceral and powerful response to the landscape of Tasmania. Neither of their works are pretty paintings, instead both artists have explored ideas of environmental and psychological histories of contested landscapes."

- Art Almanac

About Glover Prize

The Glover Prize is an Australian annual art prize awarded for paintings of the landscape of Tasmania. The prize was inaugurated in 2004 by the John Glover Society, based in Evandale, Tasmania, in honour of the work of British-born landscape painter John Glover, who lived and painted in the area from 1832 until his death in 1849. The current prize amount of A$ 40 000 is the highest for landscape painting in Australia. Raymond Arnold was the 1st place winner. He was also a previous winner.

Joan Kelly 2nd Place in John Glover 2017 landscape Painting Prize: Over 10,000 persons attended. 336 entries were considered by three independent judges. The judges for the 2017 Glover Prize are acclaimed artist and winner of the Archibald prize in 2011, Ben Quilty; Director of ARTAND, Eleonora Triguboff; and Senior Curator of Art at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Dr Mary Knights.

Moscow Exhibition-Conference- Retreat

IRIDA is the sponsor of this exhibition and hosted the international artists for 10 days in Moscow and Established in 1989 IRIDA is a Creative Association of Women Artists of Moscow –IRIDA consists of 100 artists of all kinds of fine art. Maria Esmont was elected a President of the Management and occupies this post till present time.

Conference: Collaborative effort between, Russia State University for the Humanities and Kyungpook National University.

Artistic Outcome: 4 Paintings oil on canvas The paintings confront socially constructed roles of men and women that physically confront each other without acknowledgement.

Impact: 1) Fostering dialogue and exchange of ideas on status of women in Russian and Korean societies, yet extending that to the status of women globally.

2) Catalogue
3) Conference: I was a guest speaker. This was a collaborative effort between, Russia State University for the Humanities and Kyungpook National University, It was at this conference Dr. Yuen Chee Ling, President of INWAC, International Women Artist Council attended my presentation and saw my work in the exhibition. Dr. Yuen made a request that I participate in the women’s exhibition held July 2014 at the Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery, Titled: “Her Presence” I agreed to participate. I also met Associate Professor Marci Aylward from Avila University, who I have since collaborated the teaching of the drawing class in the 1st semester of 2013-14.

Support: Hotel 10 nights, meals, tours- The group of women artists traveled to a retreat 4 hours north of Moscow in Pereslavl-Zalessky. Here we stayed 3 nights and created drawings together.

Conference:

“Woman Artists In the Contemporary World: Her Artistic and social Identity. Devoted to the Centennial of International Woman’s Day International Forum”

Joan Kelly’s Abstract:

Social Change and the Potential for Painting

Community generated art is a field in which art is generated by a community that has a commonality of shared identities. This discussion is an exploration of the transformation an artist’s work that looks to traditional art forms as a means of communication with minority communities and develops into a community generated artistic activity. New demands are made on the traditions of perceptual painting and Western figure painting. These traditions become a means of communicating with communities where there is no infrastructure for such communication. The painting becomes the resultant artifact that traces in time the briefly joined experience between artists and subjects.

Joan Kelly will discuss her collaborative artwork with marginalized women’s communities in India and Singapore. The process of making the work is an effort to capture the spirit and concerns of the participating communities. The concepts built through the work are not only ideas about art, but also ideas about equality, social structure and giving voice to minority communities. The resultant art can be a testament to the real people behind the statistics; numbers and bar graphs that are the only experience most people have with human beings that have been cast out of society yet have vibrant capabilities and imaginations. The result is a re-invigoration of the potential for painting, an instinctive, historic medium that still has the power to generate social change.

The Women artist went on a three night retreat in Pereslavl- Zalessky (NE of Moscow) to discuss, exchange and make visual notes in response.

“Samsung Masterpieces” Digital gallery which is curated by leading contemporary art critic Iola Lenzi, has seven collections. The exhibition is a perennial showcase of carefully curated digital art. The gallery has come to your mobile device. With Masterpieces, Samsung paints a step closer as an active contributor to the arts. In celebration of Creativity, Samsung takes on a role of an enabler and a host of a dynamic platform to inspire art professionals and enthusiasts alike.

Curator Iola Lenzi choose forty artists from Asia to showcase what can be done with the tools inside the new Galaxy Note 10.1. This work is now an on line exhibition that can be added to and re-curated. It is an every changing collection.

This was consultancy work for Samsung to test the stylus, as well as a curated exhibition that is on line and viewed by a global audience under the “Samsung” brand name. Below are some of the links to articles written about the exhibition.

Glover Prize 2017 & Artist in residence at University of Tasmania 2016

The 2015-2016 seasonal fires in Tasmania Australia were longer in duration because of a continued draught. As a result, fires reached the alpine level of the mountains where the forests are up to 1500 years old consisting largely of Pencil Pines. Whole forests are blackened charcoal.

My residency was directly after the fires, and became the focus of my work. As resident artist I painted two paintings of a 1500 year old tree in Tasmania’s World Heritage Area, Central Plato Conservation Area near Lake Mackenzie. I chose to paint this tree, the largest of the burnt trees that I could find. I’ve named this tree, “Joan of Arc.” after my own name, and the French Catholic Saint who was also burnt at the stake not from Global Warming but by the English, upon the orders of The Cardinal of Winchester in Rouen in 1431. Here is the painting “Joan of Arc” is surrounded by her kin. The grid reference for Joan of arc is:

448459 easting

5380999 northing

The 2nd painting is titled “Listen Close,” Joan of Arc is depicted communicating to her kin, passing on her wisdom of survival, her kin listening close. I worked from many drawings of the burnt trees as references and photographs.

The Glover Prize is an Australian annual art prize awarded for paintings of the landscape of Tasmania The prize was inaugurated in 2004 by the John Glover Society, based in Evandale, Tasmania, in honour of the work of British-born landscape painter John Glover, who lived and painted in the area from 1832 until his death in 1849. The current prize amount of A$ 40 000 is the highest for landscape painting in Australia. Raymond Arnold was the 1st place winner. He was also a previous winner.

Joan Kelly 2nd Place in John Glover 2017 landscape Painting Prize: Over 10,000 persons attended. 336 entries were considered by three independent judges. The judges for the 2017 Glover Prize are acclaimed artist and winner of the Archibald prize in 2011, Ben Quilty; Director of ARTAND, Eleonora Triguboff; and Senior Curator of Art at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Dr Mary Knights.

Speaking on behalf of his fellow judges, Ben Quilty said both Arnold and Kelly are artists and activists; “The judges were drawn to Raymond Arnold’s and Joan Kelly’s visceral and powerful response to the landscape of Tasmania. Neither of their works are pretty paintings, instead both artists have explored ideas of environmental and psychological histories of contested landscapes.” Art Almanac

-- Social Art

-- Social Art --

Wall mural in the Girls Center.

2nd year Dec 2018

We painted a 33 meter wall mural in the Girls Center a Ziat Fez Morocco
This is a continuing initiative to work with “The Girls Center, The protection of Children Center in Ziat.” I have been invited by David Amster, Director of the The American Language Center-Fes and Arab Language Institute Fes known as ALC- Fez & ALIF as a resident artist with support from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore where I am a member of faculty. Under David’s leadership a Community Service Club of energetic university students from a range of disciplines have built much more than a language learning Center. Members thrust energy in the direction of community outreach initiatives originating from their own concerns and talents. The Girls Center at Ziat is just one of their concerns. Living at the center are girls ages nine to seventeen. They are wards of the state. When they are 18 she is released to walk out whether she has support or not, they walk down the road. Psychology student Meryem Bouchnafati, Firdaous Bakhchane, an economics student and Said Maslouhi worked alongside of me as language and cultural interpreters.

My plan is for the idea and design of the mural to be derived from the girls. To collect imagery, I would conduct a series of drawing workshops with pencil and colored markers. This year I have developed some of Lynda Barry’s ideas who adopted Ivan Brunetti’s drawing exercises. I gave the girls sixty seconds to draw something on the small blank index cards. I call out and time with my phone, draw a house, draw a garden and so forth. I found I got better drawings if I gave them something animated to draw with two subjects. I tried to think of familiar sights in the median, draw a cat eating a fish! With the small paper and the limited time, sixty second drawings relieve the girls of any pressure of expectations. The drawings are not precious or something that should be refined. In sixty seconds, they cannot be in control of what happens. Simultaneously, while insecure, the girls are uncontrollable with anxious desperation to participate. The workshops always begin with a crowd around me screaming to be the one to get their paper and markers first. Waving, jumping, remember, I don’t speak their language! At the end I had a ceremony where we presented certificates certifying that each girls is a “Brilliant Artist.”

Hidden In the City Yet In Clear View

Art making with the Foreign Workers in Singapore

This Social Art piece was carried out in Spring of 2016, a collaboration between Artist Joan M Kelly, HealthServe: a Non governmental Organization supporting injured foreign workers in Singapore, Singaporean engineering students as well as Bangladesh and Indian foreign workers in Singapore. The object was to transform the perspectives local Singaporean participants have of the foreign workers thorough face to face engagement with each other.
Context: 730,000. foreign constructions are currently employed in Singapore, living in hostels and governed under different laws from residents and foreign “talent” from the Western nations. The bulk of these foreign works are from Bangladesh and India. The Singapore people walk by the foreign workers daily as they do all the manual labour in the country. There is no structure of communication or engagement between the two groups yet they have preconceived ideas about each other.
I gave an assignment to the engineering students to design an engagement with the foreign workers. Rule#1. Whatever the students ask the Bangladesh men to do they must do also.

1st night of Engagement “Breaking the Ice” the Singapore students invited the Bangladesh workers for a night of games and dancing. Left: Bangladesh workers and Singapore students dance together in SoulTrain

#1. The food they are served in plastic bags has little vitamins when they held up a bag of bean soup and the liquid was transparent. #2. Housing. The hostels have only 4 toilets for 200 men and they are responsible to clean the toilets. #3. Their monthly salary is so little and the fee for the privilege to have the job is too costly. 16000.sgd fee takes them years to repay while their salary is only 500. sgd per month minus housing costs and food.

3rd night: Students take 20 workers out to dinner so they can more intimately discuss their projects going forward.

Exchange of Beliefs: Two female students took an Indian worker to their Buddhist temple teaching him how to use prayer beads and repeat a mantra. The Indian worker took the student to his Hindu temple teaching the students about the various powers and histories of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses.

Two Chinese students invited two Bangladesh workers to cook a Bangladesh meal in their home and share a meal together.

Word and Script Exchange: The students and Bangladesh workers exchanges simple words and practiced writing the text in each others language. The students focused on teaching words that the Bangladesh men said they needed at the markets.

Food Tasting: The students treated the Bangladesh men to a variety of typical Singaporean foods while documenting their responses.

Outcomes: The results were an outpouring of empathy and a real liking for the Bangladesh men by the students. Class Blog: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/2016-da2002/
Next time: how to create outcomes that are more balanced between the social groups. The students gained insights and transformation, while the workers enjoyed themselves and the new friendships but the students all agreed that it was not balanced.

Urban Shamanic Experience

Jan Jämsen, an artist who incorporates ritual Shamanic practices into his life experience and art making. Joan Kelly, an artist who uses art to facilitate communication between dominant and minority communities. Jämsen and Kelly came together to play a version of the Surrealist André Breton’s “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau” in a game of exchange and response between a community of Finnish women with Down Syndrome (Karkulla) and Singaporean engineering and art students. Each group listened in a concentrated way to a recording of Shamanic drumming inviting a subconscious vision. The students laid down on the floor in the dark. After listening to the drumming, they wrote what they experienced. Afterwards heading to their easels to put paint to canvas, bring their visions into tangible form. But they were not confident on painting without knowing what the outcome should be. While The women listened to the drumming and immediately began to paint, some painting to the rhythm with their whole body.

As a finale both groups met virtually through a dynamic sharing session on SKYPE. The results were unexpected. The Singapore students very shy and timid, not sure of their resulting paintings. They were amazed at the confidence and assurance of the Finnish women who held up their paintings and spoke about their process in English. The Finnish women’s paintings were full of color and shapes that reached out to the viewer. While the Singapore paintings were dark in general. While the contrast was dramatic between the two groups the Finnish, women were empowered in the position of teaching and setting an example of confidence in one’s personal creativity.

-- Videos

-- Videos --

-- About

-- About --

Social Art Practitioner | Artist | Teacher

Joan Marie Kelly is a practicing artist, exhibiting and publishing internationally. Her creative work emanates from ethnographical practices such as “fieldwork”. She is a social art practitioner implementing participatory art workshops since 2009 with sex workers in Kolkata India as the founder of ‘The Kolkata Women’s Dialogue.’

She works to sustain endangered languages with three linguists, Lauren Gawne, Alexander Coupe and Frantisek Kratochvil. In each linguist’s focus area she creates artistic engagement with members of the host communities. The focus of the workshops is to expose and gain understanding of visual iconography embedded in the culture of the host community.

Joan teaches at Nanyang Technological University, School of Art Design and Media in Singapore, since 2005.